Digital Graffiti Goes Mainstream: TIME Magazine Article
I noticed that TIME covered the laser graffiti artists of the Graffiti Research Lab this week. Nearly a year ago, I covered the phenomenon of guerrilla marketing via laser light images “drawn” on the sides of buildings at night.
Having this covered in a mainstream rag like TIME is probably nearly enough to make the concept jump the shark, and the novelty element and guerrilla marketing value could be virtually annihilated by familiarity.
I’m not really complaining so much as noting the effect — and noting that the promotion value of the medium could become rapidly eroded when it’s too common. The novelty and amusement factor could give way to annoyance if laser displayed images on buildings became frequent. When a methodology hits mainstream, it’s no longer “guerrilla”. 
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/15/2008 | Permalink | 
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Filed under: Futurism, Marketing, Newsgraffiti, guerrilla advertising, guerrilla marketing
Where’s Waldo in Google Earth
In a very clever bit of marketing, Canadian artist Melanie Coles has created a large rooftop image of the iconic character found in the popular Where’s Waldo? book series.
The image is located somewhere in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was created with the specific intention of being findable via Google Earth (warning, I have the location pinpointed in a link and geocoordinates at the end of this post). It will be a while before Waldo can be found in Google Earth (or in Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MS Live Search Maps, for that matter), because there is a time lag in between when satellite images and aerial photos get updated in those services — so, it could be six months to a year before the image is really findable and viewable online.
The image was created as a demonstration of a viral game for Coles’ graduation art project at the Emily Carr Institute. Her blog statement on the project says:
Popularity: 18% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/14/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Maps, Newsaerial-photos, Google-Earth, Google-Maps, Maps, Mapvertising, Roofvertising, Satellite-Images, Viral-Marketing, Where's Waldo
Consumers: Stop Dropping Yellow Pages Books At Our Doors!
I noticed this article from Boston today, “Bothersome business pages“, which outlines residents’ irritation over receiving print directories which go unused.
I’m seeing more and more articles on the subject — this article indicates that as consumers perceive that there’s low usage and little need for print yellow pages books, they’re also coming to believe that the books sent to them are an inconvenience and an unacceptable environmental waste. (I’ve also mentioned before how I find the print directories less worthwhile, even though I used to work for a major yellow pages company.)
Apparently the Cambridge city council and other cities are actually considering going so far as to enact laws requiring that residents must opt-in for receiving the books, or they might ban mass distribution entirely… (more…)
Popularity: 15% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/09/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Local Search, News, Online Directories, Yellow PagesInternet-Yellow-Pages, Online-Yellow-Pages, Yellow Pages, yellow pages books
Google Puts News On The Map
Google has partnered with the New York Times to put news on the map — the NYT has apparently begun geotagging their news stories so that Google can associate news items with particular locations around the world. The Google Earth application can now be used to browse around a map of the world, and headlines are associated with their places of origin.
Newspapers have been very fearful of the internet and have lost revenue from their print side to free internet alternatives. But, it’s clear that embracing greater integration with interactive technologies is one viable way to remain competitive.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/08/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Maps, NewsGoogle-Earth, Maps, New York Times, Newspapers
Corporate Blogging: Too Legally Dicey To Allow?
This article at CNET, “Corporate employee blogs: Lawsuits waiting to happen?“, caught my eye. Large corporations definitely feel nervous about allowing all their employees to have a public voice, but I think it’s now something that must be allowed, and good common-sense management can be used to help avoid some of the risk of lawsuits such as the one mentioned in the article involving Cisco.
Some companies’ legal departments think that blogging is just too risky to allow, and that it’s not worth the time and administrative headache to try to manage. The problem that I see with this is that it causes a company to be stuck in a Business 1.0 world of the past, disallowing the grass-roots-level public relations that employees can provide — blogging allows a big corporation to have a human face and can help explain and communicate what the company is up to. (more…)
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 03/26/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Best Practices, General, Newsblogging, corporate blogging, employee blogs
Blog SEO Tip: Hop On A Media Feeding Frenzy
For bloggers wishing to improve their traffic, hopping onto a media feeding frenzy can give a nice burst in traffic which can translate into increases in longterm traffic.
A media feeding frenzy is when a subject or thing that’s happened suddenly becomes a top headliner story for journalists. News organizations have a well-developed radar for which stories of the day are going to be the most interesting for their audience, and they avidly push to provide articles quickly to satisfy the public’s sudden thirst. As more journalists glom onto the subject, it suddenly seems that everyone is reporting on some variation of the same subject, and this is a media feeding frenzy.
Bloggers can hop onto these feeding frenzies, and ride the wave of traffic associated with them. (more…)
Popularity: 9% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 02/04/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Blog Optimization, News, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, TricksBlog Optimization, blog promotion, blog search engine optimization, blog seo
Mahalo Traffic Growth Vulnerable To Google Penalty
A couple of weeks ago, Heather Hopkins at Hitwise noted that the human-powered Mahalo search engine has been showing a very strong curve of increasing traffic:
They also noted that 76% of this traffic comes in as referrals from other search engines.
This is slightly ironic, since Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo, has historically been very critical of the worth of search engine optimization. I’m not the only one who sees the irony in this, since Allen Stern also noted it, saying “Mahalo is an SEO Play“. As Allen notes, if Mahalo didn’t want this traffic it would be easy for them to block the spiders thru their robots.txt file.
Popularity: 54% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/24/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, News, SEO, Search Engine OptimizationGoogle, Jason Calacanis, Mahalo, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SERPs
The Kelsey Group Puts Print Yellow Pages On Notice
Over at Media Post, The Kelsey Group is quoted today saying that the erosion in usage of print yellow pages is likely to fall off at a higher rate this year — by 10% this year, compared with only 2% to 3% erosion in recent years.
They state that a combination of factors such as more users going to internet yellow pages and local search engines combined with a recession are propelling the rapid erosion. Concerningly, one can extrapolate that if print YP usage is dropping, advertiser dollars might also follow the herd.
As Greg Sterling points out, The Kelsey Group has historically been a very staunch defender of the print YP industry, so this article is a bit of a gut-punch to people in the legacy print business, even though anyone watching the trends over the last few years won’t find it all that surprising.
One thing the Media Post article doesn’t mention is how (more…)
Popularity: 41% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/11/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, News, Yellow Pagesiyp, Kelsey Group, Local Search, Online-Yellow-Pages, print-yellow-pages, Yellow Pages
ReachLocal Becomes Authorized Google Adwords Reseller
ReachLocal announced today that they’ve formed a strategic alliance with Google to become an authorized Adwords reseller. Kevin Heisler at SEW reports that this will give them a leg up on competitors in local search who won’t benefit from the same status in the Google ecosystem.
ReachLocal also sells local ads into Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, AOL, and my old company, Superpages.com.
I was privileged to be given a tour of the ReachLocal offices here in Dallas back in September, (more…)
Popularity: 26% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/08/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Monetization of Search, News, Yellow PagesAdwords, Google, Google Adwords, Local Search, online-advertising, ReachLocal
More on ISPs & Behavioral Ad Targeting
ClickZ has another good article on ISPs and Behavioral Ad Targeting today. Not only do they mention NebuAd which I wrote about in December, but they also list a few other companies that use similar NOC hardware for the same sorts of behavioral targeting, including: Phorm, FrontPorch, and Project Rialto.
My private individual half doesn’t like this sort of targeting. I pay for internet access, and I don’t particularly want people using my data to pigeon-hole me into a demographic for specific types of ads — and I’m mistrustful of how private/secure/anonymous these companies will keep my individual usage data.
My more public, professional half has to readily admit that for advertisers, behavioural targeting may be very advantageous in terms of communicating to a desired audience of buyers, and could also be very cost-effective in reducing wasteful ad impressions. I suspect that behavioral ad targeting may convert at a higher rate than other media if executed in a sophisticated manner. The only downside is that it likely also restricts the size of the audience share available to be exposed to the ads.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/03/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS | Filed under: Advertising, Marketing, News